Well, why not? How about some glow-in-the-dark signs to find it at night?
On a serious note, there are a lot of stories about mountaineers getting sick from drinking melted snow contaminated by human waste. Having some portable toilets in some designated areas might alieviate the sickness suffered by those who depend on melted snow for a water source. As a nature lover and avid hiker I’m disgusted by the amount of trash and graffiti I find in our national parks. Please take your trash with you. Let’s leave our wild areas clean for all to enjoy.
“A young Nepali climber is seeking to popularize a toilet fashioned from a plastic bucket with a lid to promote eco-friendly climbing on Mount Everest.Hundreds of climbers flock to the world’s tallest peak at 8,850 meters (29,035 feet) every year, with many simply squatting in the open or hunching behind rocks as the Everest base camp has no proper toilet facilities. Dawa Steven Sherpa, who led an eco-Everest expedition in May to collect trash dumped by previous climbers, said his team used a plastic bucket as well as a gas-impervious bag designed to safely contain and neutralize human waste and keep in odor.
“It is portable and very secure,” Sherpa, 25, told Reuters. “I want to promote anything that manages human waste on the mountain.” Sherpa’s team, during its month-long expedition, picked up 965 kg (2,100 pounds) of cans, gas canisters, kitchen waste, tents, parts of an Italian helicopter that crashed 35 years ago and remains of the body of a British climber who died in 1972. In addition, his team also brought down 65 kg of human waste produced by its 18 members, which it handed over to a local environment group at the base camp for management. “To date, no other container designed for human waste exists in this size, weight or strength,” Sherpa said of the U.S.-designed bucket, which is 11 inches tall and weighs 2.4 pounds, and has an opening that is eight inches in diameter.”
(via Reuters)
